1/ Self-confidence. Great to fuel conviction, motivation, resilience. Make sure it doesn't undermine or annihilate humility, clarity of vision and focus. #attitude
2/ Culture. Fundamental for purpose, cohesion and success. Must be inclusive, progressive and open-minded to last sustainably. #team
3/ Learnings. Mandatory to grow alongside the company, the team and the market. Don't learn too much, too soon, too fast. Execution is learning. #learning
4/ Hire well through the right process (the A-method) and more importantly with a clear understanding of the why and how. Pass it over to every single person in the team and do not let the fear of being wrong slow you down. #hiring
5/ Fire fast the wrong people. For most people, It's only true beyond the adaptation period with clear and explicit guidance, sometimes adjustments and even additional training. #letgo
6/ A Players are game changers. They are also team killers without purpose, positive honesty, empowering tolerance towards other team members. A team > A players #moneyball
7/ Growth in the only way, velocity the most necessary mean. It only works with anticipation, focus, and attention to details and signals. #growth
#1 The best founders are able to manage both attention to details and velocity towards the highest level of performance.
#2 The best founders aim beyond 100% in everything they do (learning, hiring, managing, leading, executing…), because they implicitly understand the value of compounded effects. 95%, compounded infinitely, tends towards zero, while 105% tends to infinity.
So much misplaced ego, hypocrisy & politics in Venture Capital.
That's quite shocking for an industry that praises the value of building great relationships w/ founders & helping them build honest, positive, ambitious organisations.
And yes...
Lazy partners will claim deals, stupid colleagues will try to compete with you instead of offering help on deals, people you thought you could trust will bypass you, people you dislike will be hired without anyone giving a damn about the cohesion of the team, the list goes on...
Focus on the genuine and honest relationships that you build with founders, be pro-active and efficient. Learn every day with humility, conviction, flexibility, determination. Don't get lazy, greedy or sneaky.